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Appropriationism solves the central problem of dualism

The central problem besetting dualism, says Ed Feser in his Philosophy of Mind, is the interaction of mind and body.

My neo-Aristotelian / Polyanyian (new word!) alternative to dualism is the claim that the higher level appropriates the actions of the lower level.  This is true first of all in cases in which immateriality is not even a consideration.  For example, sentient activity appropriates lower-level organic activity.

This metaphor is rooted in a passage in Aristotle's De sensu where he says that the common sense takes on the operations of the lower, external senses like a craftsman who is using tools.  Certainly there is a klunky way of interpreting this simile. But I only intend to convey by it that the higher power takes the operation of the lower power and, without doubling it, makes that lower level activity part of its own higher level activity.

if the human soul is subsistent, then in appropriates human powers as well.  But we regard the tool-analogy as plausible in this case only because we have understood how it applies to the sensus communis--a power had not only by humans but by other animals as well.

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